While today many will try to appropriate and sanitize his image and legacy for their own agendas (looking at you PETA), let us remember that King fought for the freedom of oppressed people all over the world, especially the black communities from which he originated. Hamden Rice on Daily Kos wrote about his legacy, helping black people to confront their fears of daily life living in the South and in general. Not that those fears or dangers have gone completely away, but that we can stand up to them.

Also, let’s be clear, that is what made him dangerous, too, and eventually why he was assassinated. Some can pretend that they love and respect him now, but probably would have been the same people back then who would have jailed him. Do you think they would have agreed so easily with speeches like, “Where Do We Go From Here?,” or “A Time to Break the Silence,” or any of his other later speeches. But some in America want the King stuck in time in 1963 like his perpetual Groundhog’s Day because it is easier to take and appeals to their own desires. But King envisioned a different world than what they had in mind.